Messages - gardencreek

The passion started behind a wood shed with a Rainier we snuck out of my buddies dad's ice box. I was probably 10 or 11 and it was the best thing I ever tasted. After a "few" high school keggers drinking whatever swill we could get someone to buy us, Uncle Sam sent me on a round the world trip. Oh man, Kirin, Tsingtao, OB, Victoria Bitters, Spaten, Black and Tan's at the Bull and Boar, and on and on: the world is a wonderful place - there's beer in it.

Now years later I get to brew my own and have come to believe two fundamental concepts: there's no such thing as too much hops and Sir Isaac Newton didn't know squat about higher gravity...

A full cup weighs about 5 ounces and by my feeble calculations, it should produce 2.8 to 3 volumes CO2. I can force carb but there is something about bottle conditioned beer that I like better.

I'm tinkering with carbonation levels where, even if the initial pour has to be very cold, the effervescence at ale temp is high, thereby giving me the full sensory profile. Is it to style guidelines? Nope not even close. I enjoy the subtle mingling's of the malt, hops and yeast aromas as much as the actual flavors. If it makes me slobber like my dog then it's a winner.

I have a 5 gallon all grain batch of pale, OG: 1058, used treated RO water, mashed at 150 deg, negative iodine reaction, pitched 1600 ml starter of wyeast 1056 and fermented at 68 deg. 1 week in primary, 14 days in secondary. After primary, everything was purged and pushed with CO2. I bottled out of a corny with a beer gun. Bottle conditioned with 1 cup of priming sugar and everything was sanitized with idophor (mixed 2 tsp to 3 gal H2O).

Left the bottles in the lager box at 68deg for 3 weeks. If the beer is room temp I can get a little bit of CO2 out of solution with agitation, none if they are cold. Gravity is 1006.

It makes no sense to me. I took some of the same caps and recapped a known carbonated beer, got it hot, shook it up and put it under water, no gas leakage. I'm starting to think the priming sugar might have been mislabeled lactose but I'm not getting the mouth feel or taste I would expect with an addition of lactose.